Tuesday Things: Burning Love

Knitting: I’m still knitting away at socks for The Second Annual Unofficial DVD Sock Club which is probably what I’ll be doing all year. This month I’m using the Slinky colorway to make a pair for Jesse. I just finished the first one and you can see what the yarn looks like here if you’re interested (but it isn’t all pretty and blocked).

Reading: A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. I had this book sitting on my bookshelf for years and then I donated it and then I bought it again and then it sat on my shelf again before I picked it up on a whim. I’m about halfway through and for a subject matter as dark as suicide, it’s a rather light hearted read. I don’t know why I donated the original copy, but I’m grateful it found it’s way back into my life.

Eating: Burning Love Mashed Potatoes. They’re magic. Next time I’ll either cut the bacon smaller or cook it beforehand and crumble it up because my onions and mushrooms were well and truly done way before my bacon but it definitely hit the spot on a drizzly Monday evening. (I’ll also be sure to use Yukon golds and add some garlic to the potatoes).

Watching: I finished watching Alias, started watching House of Cards (I hate myself for how much I love Frank and Claire and how badly I want to see them succeed), and am waiting impatiently for season 3 of Orphan Black to come on Amazon Prime. (It took me awhile to get on the Amazon Prime bandwagon, but now that I’m on, I doubt I’ll ever get off.) It sounds like I’ve been watching television a lot more than I actually have. As a matter of fact, Monday was the first time I watched anything in almost a week (whoop-dee-doo) and I needed to watch something because I was falling behind on my socks.

We’ve been working on some house projects (picking out new flooring for the bedrooms upstairs) and getting our ducks in a row for summer activities (already!) and somehow the days seem to disappear before they even start. I keep wishing there was a way to slow it all down. Adding insult to injury: Jess and I have been looking at getting a new (to us) car and talking about how it could very well be the car Violet uses when she gets her license. Just this weekend I was sitting next to a baby thinking, “It was just yesterday that I used to brunch with Violet.” HOW?!? Anyway…all that to say since there isn’t a way to slow it all down, I’ve been soaking it up along with the early spring. Throwing the football with Abram, sitting on the porch knitting with Violet (she’s just starting to learn and I LOVE it), tromping through the muddy woods after dinner listening to them play on their walkie talkies. My heart is happy.

I am so glad your heart is happy. I really like newsy posts like this. I don’t have much to say in response, just that it’s great to hear what you’ve been up to. I really loved the first season of House of Cards, but I never got past about the third episode of season 2. I’ll be interested to see if it holds you. I also loved the first few episodes of Orphan Black, but then it lost me, too. We’re currently enjoying season 3 of The Americans. Yes, am a fan of Prime, too! Wish I could share about reading, but nada going on here. And no crafty things, either. Lots of college scholarship goings on in our household. Will be glad when things are settled, but sad that it will mean it’s almost graduation. Don’t even get me started on time and its swift passage.

I am NOT ready to even think about scholarship application work. I can’t imagine the push and pull involved in having grown up babies. I’m watching my niece and sister-in-law as they prep for her to leave the nest this fall and I know that it’s good and important and (according to my mother who is very rarely wrong) we’ll both be ready when the time comes, but I just don’t know HOW that happens.

Have you told me about The Americans before? I have it on my list but it doesn’t sound familiar so SOMEONE must have mentioned it but I can’t remember (which is why I have a list). I’ll have to give it a look. I definitely have had moments with House of Cards – last season especially – where I just feel as if I should move on and find something else, but for whatever reason I don’t. And this season has managed to recapture my interest.

Also: I looked into the blog you mentioned “Reading While White” and I’m looking forward to adding it to list. While perusing some of the content, I’m not going to lie, there was some uncomfortable tension. I’m looking forward to reading more and thinking more.

Violet is learning to knit! That’s wonderful, Kate! Love the socks you knit for Jesse 🙂 . My husband was hinting at a pair of mittens for him to wear at hockey (it’s cold, but not really cold, so just right for hand knit mittens) and all I could think was, but I have to knit a dozen pairs of socks first! (There’s just not enough time to knit everything I want to knit 🙁 ).

Ah yes, our time with our young kids does go by WAY too fast. We were away for a couple days, visiting with our daughter at university, who probably won’t be coming home (to stay) for the summer … which makes me really sad, on the one hand, but also happy for her, because she’s happy where she is and that’s SUCH a good thing. And we were also touring our grade 12 son around the campus (yet again), because he goes off to university in the fall (whether to her school or another, we don’t know yet), but HOW exactly this all happened so quickly, I’m not sure 🙁 .

My biggest complaint about knitting is that I have more projects to tackle and yarn to buy than time. In fact, I told Jesse just the other day that when I think of wanting to live to a ripe old age – it’s in large part because I have so many things I want to knit. And I know I will only find more!! 🙂 (And we’ll see how much Violet continues with it. She’ll often do a row or two if I ask her if she’d like to knit with me, but I haven’t seen her pick it up on her own. She also tends to be a bit like her mother – new things that don’t go smoothly at first tend tend to result in frustration and giving up. I’m trying not to push too much or too hard. Knitting – all the things I’ve learned from it 🙂 )

Best of luck to your son. What an exciting and nerve-wracking time – picking where to go to school. I can imagine it’s a bit the same for you as well. Parenting “grown up” children is a something I’m not ready to imagine yet (though it’s time will be here soon enough). I suppose in some ways it’s what we face throughout all the years – watching them take on new challenges and supporting them while worrying for them. Wishing for their success while missing the days when we could take care of everything. Just bigger. I read somewhere once that motherhood is a slow and endless cleaving which seems overly simplistic but also apt.

Hey there, I’m Kate!

I love yarn, photography, books, and a good cup of coffee. I blog like it's 2007. I write a lot about knitting, Netflix, and any other nonsense that strikes my fancy. Sometimes I get ranty. Welcome to my little corner of the internet!